Hello again, nice to see you back. Our
last chapter ended on Monday, November 10th, when we left
Silent Valley Club near Banning, California, and traveled 50 miles
east to the Indian Waters RV Resort in Indio, California. Indian
Waters is located only a mile from the country club where our house
was back before we went on the road full time. We are settled into a
nice spot at Indian Waters and will be here for a full two months,
about the longest we have stayed in the Coachella Valley since
leaving here in 2005.
Tuesday, November 11th,
Happy Veteran's Day and thank you to all the Veterans out there. I
myself served nine years in the Marine Corps, four active duty and
five reserve. My dad was a 35 year Navy man. We went out after
lunch and took Jackie to the doctor to see if he could find some way
to relieve the almost constant headaches she has had for the last
month or so. The doctor told her that it could be a sinus infection,
and gave here some antibiotics for that, but also said that she is
very tightly knotted up in her upper back and shoulders. He suspects
that this may also be a contributing factor and prescribed some
muscle relaxers and some exercises to help loosen up the back. After
the doctors appointment we stopped at the grocery store for some
supplies and then went back to the coach.
For our 5:00 happy hour we walked over
to a friend's coach just down from ours to chat. Jay and Donna
Blumenthal had been big movers and shakers in the Family Motor Coach
Association (FMCA) and Jay was President of the International Area of
FMCA when we first got to know them. They are originally from Long
Island, New York, but they have been coming out to the desert for
many years in the winter. A few years back Jay finished up his
responsibilities in FMCA and now they just travel back and forth
between New York and Indio. They are true full timers, no house, but
they pretty much just go back and forth now. They did a few hundred
thousand miles traveling for FMCA business, so they are ready for a
quieter lifestyle now. Since we almost always come back to Indio for
the holiday season, we are always around them this time of year. We
had a nice chat, catching up since we last saw them back in May of
this year. After talking with Jay and Donna for a while we went home
and I went and picked up a pizza for dinner and we relaxed in the
coach for the rest of the night.
Wednesday, November 12th, we
did some chores around the house and ran some light errands after
lunch. About 3:30 we left and drove to the Jackalope Ranch, a nearby
restaurant to meet with some friends we had first met at our Full
Timer's Rally in Oregon back in July. Bob and Diane Beatty are
fairly new full time RVers, only on the road about a year, and our
rally was one of the first they attended. They are really friendly
people and we had learned through an email conversation after we
arrived in Indio that they are also here, at the Thousand Trails RV
park a couple miles north, but they are leaving on Thursday. We made
arrangements to meet them for happy hour at Jackalope.
We arrived and, since it was a very
nice evening, got a table out on the patio. Bob and Dianne arrived
shortly after and we had drinks and then some dinner. We spent about
three hours with them, talking about our journeys and our life
stories. We had talked to them some at the rally, but since we were
the hosts we couldn't spend as much time as we would have liked. It
was very nice to have an opportunity to chat with them uninterrupted
for some length of time. We finally left about 7:00 and went back to
the coach for the rest of the night. We will probably next see Bob
and Dianne at the FMCA rally in Pomona in March of next year.
Thursday, November 13th, we
decided to stay around the house today. I got a half a dozen small
chores completed and Jackie did as well. Although we didn't do any
big things, and didn't leave the coach, we both were vary happy with
what we accomplished. For dinner we had a nice pot roast that had
been cooking in the crock pot all day. We spent the rest of the
evening with the TV. About 8:30 I heard a series of gunshots, what
sounded like handguns, that also sounded fairly close. With my law
enforcement background I knew it was gunshots.
We had the windows open because it was
a nice night, but because of the echo effect, I wasn't sure where the
shots were coming from. There are a number of lower middle class
housing areas around the RV park. Not too much later we heard a lot
of sirens, which went on for a half hour or so. I never did hear any
shouting, or squealing tires or loud engines, so I didn't think it
was a drive-by or anything too close to us. I decided it was likely
someone shooting into the air, you get that a lot here on New Years.
We just closed the front door, in case someone involved jumped the
wall into the RV park or something, and watched TV until bed.
Friday, November 14th, we
read in the morning paper that the shots we heard last night came
from about two blocks to the west and were from an Indio Police
officer shooting at a suspect. The suspect was only wounded and the
paper didn't have much more to say about the shooting. We left the
park about noon and drove to a restaurant in Indio, called TKB Deli,
to meet with some friends for lunch. Shortly after we settled in
Indio on Monday we heard from Charlie and Sharon Anderson, some
friends we met about six years ago at a Monaco International Rally.
At that time they had a Monaco coach and we would cross paths with
them from time to time in our travels. A year or so ago they sold
their coach and now have a home in Yuma in addition to their original
place is central Illinois. They are in the Coachella Valley spending
a week at a time share in North Indio. We set up a time to meet for
lunch. It has been a couple of years since we have seen them in
person.
The restaurant we went to is a sandwich
shop that is rated by Yelp to the number one rated restaurant in
Indio. They also have a bakery in addition to the sandwich choices.
They have a very eclectic sandwich menu, ranging from vegetarian to
meat lovers. I had an Italian type hero that was very good. Jackie
had the special, which was a chicken salad that she said was OK, but
nothing special. I would like to go back sometime when we are here
because there are a couple of other choices on the menu I would like
to try. We sat and talked to Charlie and Sharon for almost two
hours. They are sort of splitting there time between Illinois and
Yuma with a lot of short side trips. They traded their big 40 foot
motorhome for a smaller travel trailer that they only use when they
are actually traveling between destinations. They don't live in it.
They seem to be doing a lot of time share and cruise travel and
really seem to be enjoying their life.
After saying goodbye to Charlie and
Sharon, who we will probably see again in Yuma in February, we went
out to do a few geocaches. We were able to get four new finds, along
with two DNFs in a couple of hours of searching. As the sun started
going down we stopped at Walmart for a few things and then decided to
make a stop at the Indio Elks Lodge. The Indio Lodge was where both
Jackie and I joined the Elks, me in 2000, she in 2002. We went into
the bar and, although the place was very busy with a sold out Friday
night dinner service, we only saw three people in the whole hour and
a half we were there that we knew. There is a whole new crowd of
members and visitors. After a couple of drinks we headed back to the
coach and watched TV the rest of the evening.
Saturday, November 15th, we
left the coach about 11:00 and drove into Palm Desert to the College
of the Desert Street Fair. This large street fair is active every
Saturday and Sunday throughout the year, although in the summer it
gets a lot smaller. There are several hundred vendors, many of them
fairly high end, that come out and set up booths. We always like to
go there at least once of twice during our stays in the Coachella
Valley. We ended up buying a few things, some small metal tubes that
some people use for pills, they are called bison tubes, which are
also very handy for geocaching. We bought some plastic insect finger
puppets that we are going to turn into geocaches that we can hide
around the Coachella Valley. We need the bison tubes so we have
somewhere to put the log which every cache has to have. I also
bought a Marine Corps hat and Jackie got a new pair of shoes in
exchange for a pair she bought last year that broke.
After we went through the street fair
we drove to the nearby Red Lobster restaurant for a late lunch, early
dinner. The Red Lobster was built a year or so ago and we haven't
been to this particular store yet, so we thought we would try it out.
The service was good, although a touch slow at the beginning. I had
a fisherman's platter with fish, clams, shrimp and scallops that I
thought was very good, up to the standards I expect from Red Lobster.
Jackie had a New Orleans salmon dish that she said was good, but not
as hot as she had expected. I also had a cup of the clam chowder
which was outstanding. For the most part we were happy with the
experience, much more so than at their sister restaurant Olive Garden
a few weeks back.
After lunch we went to the shopping
area nearby and stopped at Bed Bath and Beyond looking for a few
things. Jackie got a new cleaner for our laminate flooring, although
we didn't find what we actually went in there to find. Jackie then
went to the clothing store next door and I went into the Guitar
Center store in the same shopping center. I started playing guitar
back in 1967 when I was stationed in Hawaii with the Marine Corps. I
just taught myself and wasn't especially good, just basic rhythm
chords, but I enjoyed playing and singing along, mostly oldies and
folk music. I 1998 when I moved from Phoenix to Indio my guitar
didn't make it on the truck and my ex got rid of it, so I just let it
lapse. Now, 16 years later I have been getting a hankering to pick
it up again, so I have been looking.
At the music store I found a nice
Alverez acoustic guitar with electronic pickup on sale, almost half
price, from $300 to $159. It was a pretty guitar and played well, so
I talked to Jackie and ended up buying it, along with a soft case and
strap. So now I have to get my finger callouses back, relearn the
basic chords, and have a good time. We run into a lot of “jam
sessions” in our travels and I am looking forward to eventually
being able to get in with them and play and sing. After our shopping
we headed back to the coach where we relaxed the rest of the night.
Sunday, November 16th, we
had a relaxing morning with the Sunday paper and left the coach about
2:00 to go visit with our friend Barry Cohen at the Motor Coach
Country Club. We stopped at the store to pick up some salad mix and
then went over to Barry's place, which is only a couple miles from
our RV park. It was a little too cold and windy to sit outside, so
we sat inside with Barry and just talked about everything from his
summer travels to what we might do next summer and everything in
between. We had a couple of drinks and around 5:00 or so Barry
heated up some of his famous meatballs and sauce and we had salad and
spaghetti with meatballs. Although Barry is Jewish, he cooks great
Italian food. We had a great visit and finally left about 6:30 and
headed home and stayed in the rest of the evening. Monday we did a
few chores around the house and in the afternoon we did a Costco run.
Tuesday was a stay at home day. I got a number of chores done, as
did Jackie.
Wednesday, November 19th, we
left the coach after lunch and drove to Rancho Mirage to go to the
movies. We went to see Birdman, starring Michael Keaton. Jackie's
brother Dennis had raved about the movie and the great acting, and
Jackie and I are both Keaton fans, so we thought we would give it a
try. I am normally not into message movies, I generally go to films
for entertainment, not to try to figure out what the writer and
director are trying to tell us about life and living. That said, the
acting in this film was great and I think it will be an Oscar
contender this year. The base story is about a washed up actor,
Keaton, whose only real film glory was playing a super hero called
Birdman, trying to put together a Broadway play. Keaton's character
wrote the adaptation from the book, and is the director, producer and
lead actor in the play. Keaton's character also has some psychiatric
problems as well, which are really mystifying for the first half of
the movie, until you figure out what's going on. I am no theater
critic, far from it, but in my estimation the movie is really a
treatise on the perceived shallowness of Hollywood actor's and their
art and the pretentiousness of theater artists. I thought it was an
excellent movie.
After the theater we made a stop at the
Palm Desert Cactus Jack's so we could see an old friend, Kevin.
Back when we had the house in Indio and were at Cactus Jack's four or
five times a week Kevin was the night bartender. I played golf with
him a few times and we were good friends. A couple years ago Kevin
moved over to the new location in Palm Desert, so we try to get by to
say hi at least once or twice when we get back to the desert. After
having a drink and talking to Kevin for a bit we left and headed home
where we watched TV the rest of the evening.
Thursday, November 20th, we
left the coach after lunch and went out to do some geocaching. We
were able to get eight new finds in a couple of hours. The
interesting thing about today's caching was that six of the caches
were what are called “Challenge” caches. The cache owner comes
up with some sort of geocaching challenge and then publishes the
challenge as a geocache. For instance, one of the challenges we
completed today was to find and log geocaches where the name of the
cache begins with one of the letters of your caching handle. In out
case, Travelingholts, we would have to have found 14 caches, one of
which started with a “t” and another with an ”r” and so
forth.
Now we have over 6,500 finds, so to
meet this challenge we only had to go back in our records and find
the required caches. Once we did that we could go out and find the
actual container, sign the log and then log the cache as found. All
six of the challenges we logged today were one's that we had met the
requirements already with our caching history. There are a few more
out there that we actually have to go out and find specific new finds
in order to meet the logging requirements. It is just an interesting
twist on caching that keeps the sport interesting. After caching we
stopped at Walmart for a few things then headed home for the rest of
the night.
Friday, November 21st, we
left the coach after lunch and went out to do our laundry. About
every two weeks or so we need to wash clothes, and we don't like to
do it on the weekends because the laundromats get too crowded with
working people. We finished our laundry about 3:00 and headed back
to the coach. About 4:00 we went over to the clubhouse area of the
RV park for the Friday night social time. Our friend Jay Blumenthal
had his electronic keyboard setup and was playing some light music.
I did a couple of songs with him and another guest of the park
brought his guitar and did a couple of songs. I didn't bring my
guitar yet as I am still working on remembering the chords and also
getting my finger callouses built up. I am not quite ready for prime
time yet. About 5:30 we left the social and went back to the coach
for the rest of the night.
Saturday, November 22nd, the
day JFK was shot. Fifty years ago I was a junior in high school in
Phoenix when the news came over the intercom. One of those days you
never forget. We left the coach about 10:00 and drove to Palm Desert
and the College of the Desert Street Fair. We had just been there
last week and normally wouldn't be going back this soon, but Ray
Babcock had called the other night and said they wanted to go and
would like to meet us to spend some time with us. We met them at the
street fair and spent a couple of hours walking around. We bought a
couple of little things, nothing much, and about 1:30 or so left the
college and drove to Sherman's Deli for lunch. Sherman is a kosher
deli that has been around in the Coachella Valley for decades. There
are two, one in Palm Springs and one in Palm Desert. Both Ray and I
had New York style Hot Pastrami sandwiches which were outstanding. A
half pound of lean pastrami on rye bread. Jackie had corn beef and
chopped liver. Suzie had a breakfast of French toast with bacon, yes
they serve bacon to the non-Hebrew crowd. I know there are some
kosher delis who won't serve pork products, but Sherman's keeps all
it's options open. Better for business. After a very nice lunch
with friends we parted company and the Babcocks drove back to
Murietta and we went back to the coach for the rest of the night.
Sunday was a stay at home day. We spent the morning with the
newspaper and did a few odd jobs and chores in the evening. A nice,
relaxing day.
Monday, November 24th, I
left the coach about 9:45 and drove to the Sam's Club in Palm Desert
to get the tires on the Jeep rotated and balanced. We had these new
tires put on in Yuma back in February and normally I would have
waited a little longer to do the rotation, but I also had a slow leak
in one of the tires and wanted to get it fixed. As long as I was
there I figured I might as well get the rotation done too. It turned
out the leak was a bad valve stem core, so it was a quick, easy fix.
After I got back to the coach we had lunch and then went to Costco
and Walmart for some shopping. Once our shopping was done we went
back to the coach for the rest of the night.
Our evening was spent glued to the
television watching coverage of the riot in Ferguson, Missouri when
the grand jury there refused to indict the police officer that shot
the young black guy a couple months back. With respect to all of
those who read this blog I will keep most of my opinions to myself
since this is a friendly travel blog, not a political one. I will
question the wisdom of releasing the findings at 9:00 at night,
knowing that there was a powder keg waiting to explode in that city.
It just makes it easier for those with ill intent, not lawful
protest, to do their deeds under the cover of darkness.
Tuesday, November 25th, we
left the coach about noon and drove to Cactus Jack's in Indio for
lunch with some friends. At the happy hour here at the park last
Friday we were talking to a couple who are from Vancouver Island,
British Columbia and are here at Indian Waters for the first time.
Doug and Val are about our age and a very nice couple. We had made
arrangements to “introduce” them to Cactus Jack's by meeting us
for lunch today. We had a very nice lunch and ended up sitting with
them for about two hours talking. While we were there the owner of
the place, George Bishop, who is a friend of ours, came in and we
were able to introduce Doug and Val to him.
After lunch we went back to the coach
and relaxed for the rest of the afternoon. About 6:00 we left and
drove down to the Indio Elks Lodge. Tonight is the regular meeting
night of the lodge's RV club, the Desert Drifters. Back when we had
our house here and were members of the Indio Elks, we were members of
the Drifters and went on three or four outings a year with them. I
was even the President of the club for a couple of years. We kept
our membership for a couple years after we left in 2005, but when we
transferred our Elks membership to the lodge in Pahrump we realized
that we were not likely to be going on any outings with the Indio
group, so we dropped the membership.
Although there are a lot of new members
in the group, there are still a handful of people who had been
members when we were and we wanted to go to the meeting just to see
some old friends. We were able to see Tom and Joan Bolaris, Monte
and Pat Montez, and Joe and Barbara Daily. All of the other people
are the meeting were new to us. We had a couple drinks while we were
there and enjoyed seeing our old friends. After the meeting we went
back home and watched TV the rest of the night.
Wednesday, November 26th, we
were up and out of the coach by 9:00 or so headed to Rancho Mirage
for a doctor's appointment. Both Jackie and I were doing our annual
check up with our dermatologist. I have been going at least once a
year since I had a melanoma removed from by back in 2009. Jackie had
a couple of bumps and blemishes she wanted checked too. The doc
sprayed a bunch of places on both of us with nitrogen to burn off
some non threatening stuff, and he found a spot on my neck that he
said looked like a skin cancer, a basil cell cancer, which is not as
dangerous as the melanomas. He took a biopsy and said that if it
turned out to be a cancer I would have to come in and have it removed
completely.
After the skin doctor we did a few
geocaches and then stopped for a light lunch at a Mexican restaurant
in Palm Desert called Los Pepes. We had never been there before.
The food was good, but a little on the pricy side, probably because
of the location. After lunch we stopped at a music store to pick up
something I had ordered and then did some more caching in the area.
We ended up with eight new finds, including reaching the milestone of
6,700 finds. Yea us! We quit caching about 2:00 and headed back to
the coach.
About 4:30 we went down to the
clubhouse at the RV resort for dinner. There were more
than 150 people in the room for Thanksgiving dinner. The park provided turkey and
ham, as well as the wine, and the guests brought the stuffing,
potatoes, salads and other side items. We brought a big bowl of
mashed potatoes. I helped our friend Jay Blumenthal with the 50/50
drawing, selling tickets before dinner. We ended up with over $400
in the kitty, half of which went to a local charity mission. The
dinner was really good and we had a chance to talk to some new people
who happened to be at our table. By 7:00 or so we were back in our
coach relaxing for the rest of the night.
Thursday, November 27th,
Happy Thanksgiving. We spent the day at the coach with Jackie
working on a Thanksgiving dinner in the later afternoon. About 5:00
or so Jay Blumenthal came over for cocktails and dinner. Jay's wife
Donna had flown back to New York yesterday for some family
commitments, so, since Jay was alone on the Holiday, we invited him
dinner. We also had our Canadian friends Doug and Val over. The
five of us had a cocktail and then Jackie served dinner. We had a
big turkey breast, sweet potatoes, stuffing, cranberries, and lots of
gravy. We even had a pumpkin pie with whipped cream for desert.
Everyone ate their fill and then we sat and talked until about 9:30
or so.
Jay is Jewish and his father had been a
Rabbi. Jay had also taught in Hebrew school, so he is very
knowledgeable about Jewish history and culture. The five of us spent
about three hours talking about what I could best describe as
“comparative religions” and the cultural and historic basis for
many of the Jewish and Christian beliefs. It was a fascinating and
educational discussion that I think everyone enjoyed. And, a really
great way to celebrate Thanksgiving. After everyone left we watched
a little TV and then headed off to bed.
Friday we decided to make a stay at
home day just to avoid the “Black Friday” shopping crowds. There
wasn't anything we needed to buy and neither of us were interested in
fighting the crowds for some of the bargains, so we stayed home and
took care of some chores around the house. We had leftover
Thanksgiving dinner for dinner and had a very quiet and enjoyable
day.
About 4:00 we went down to the
clubhouse for happy hour. I took my new guitar with me and played in
public for the first time in about eighteen years. I played and sang
about three songs and played along with Jay on his keyboard for a
couple of others. Jay also had one of his son's, Mark, at the happy
hour. Mark also played guitar, but a whole lot better than me. He
also did a couple of solo songs. All in all it was a fun night.
Saturday, November 29th, we
went out after lunch for some geocaching, but today we were not
searching for caching but rather were looking for places to hide some
new geocaches. We currently have a dozen or so geocaches hidden in
the Pahrump area, our home base. However, since we also spend at
least three or four months in Southern California every year, we
decided to hide some here too. The caching rules require that we
designate someone as the “emergency maintainer” who lives in the
area, but we know a number of geocachers who live in the Coachella
Valley area and would be willing to check on a cache that needed
maintenance if we were not around.
We ended up getting three caches hidden
after a couple of hours of searching for good spots. The rules
require at least a tenth of a mile separation between geocaches, and
there are a lot of caches hidden in the Coachella Valley, so it takes
a bit to find an available area that is also a good place to hide a
cache. Our last cache was hidden in a Walmart shopping center
parking lot, so we made a stop for a couple things and then went home
for the rest of the night.
Sunday, November 30th, we
had coffee and the Sunday paper in the morning and then went out to
Cactus Jack's for a nice Sunday brunch. After lunch we did some
geocaching, getting four new finds and one DNF. Sadly, the DNF was
one that we couldn't find almost two years ago. It has since been
found a couple of times, but we struck out again. Boo hoo! We also
took the time to hide one more geocache in between searching for
caches. After caching we headed home and I prepared the four caches
we hid the last couple days and then submitted them to geocaching.com
for publishing to the caching community. Normally that process takes
a couple of days and then people will see them online and can start
looking for them. We watched TV the rest of the evening.
This being the last day of the month,
and it has been almost two weeks since we posted, I think it is time
to get this episode out in public. We are still here in Indio for
another six weeks, so we will be out with another chapter in a few
weeks. Until then, travel safely, enjoy life and never do anything
that you wouldn't want to have to explain to the paramedics. Ciao
for now.
